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BEHIND
THE SCENES: An Interview with Mona Hatoum
Our upcoming exhibition Artist’s
Choice: Mona Hatoum, Here Is Elsewhere is the latest installment of MoMA’s Artist’s
Choice series, initiated in 1989 by the late Kirk Varnedoe, former
Chief Curator of the Department of Painting and Sculpture. The
guiding principle of this series is, in Varnedoe’s words, "to
see the collection in a fresh new way, outside the normal patterns
of chronological installation, departmental divisions, and curatorial
thinking; and in parallel, to gain insight into the way contemporary
artists draw inspirations from their predecessors."
Here Is Elsewhere, the sixth exhibition in this unique series,
is organized by artist Mona Hatoum. How do these works reflect
Hatoum’s own artistic practices? Why did this particular
selection of masterpieces resonate with this contemporary artist?
Excepts from our interview between exhibition co-curator Fereshteh
Daftari and Mona Hatoum gives you a closer look…
Fereshteh Daftari: Unhampered by constraints regulating Museum
curators and crossing MoMA's departmental boundaries, you have
chosen some sixty works dating mostly from the 1990s. Can you explain
how you approached this task and elaborate on any theme that emerges
from your selection?
Mona Hatoum: I chose to look at work in the collection from the
seventies to the present, not only because since 1975 I found myself
living in London, and contemporary Western art became my context,
but also because I think it was a very interesting period. Feminism
has had a tremendous impact on the art world since the beginning
of the seventies. I feel that examining power relationships along
the gender divide also paved the way to questioning other power
structures along the lines of race, class, and cultural difference.
FD: In the trajectory you have created, can you stop at (pick)
specific works (or groupings), explain why they resonate with you,
and elaborate on any affinity you find with your own work?
MH: I find affinities with a lot of the work in the show because
of similar concerns or simply ways of working that I have employed
in the past or continue to use in the present. As a student in
the late seventies, I made work using my own bodily fluids and
hair and nail pairings, et cetera, which makes me feel a connection
with [Kiki] Smith's work with body fluids. I came across [Martha]
Rosler's video when she visited the University of London, where
I was in my final year as a postgraduate student. At the time,
I was making installations connecting kitchen utensils together
and sending 240 volts of electricity through them. So that work
resonated with me.... [Francis] Alÿs's work makes me feel
nostalgic for the time in the eighties when I worked mostly in
performance and video and made a series of street performances
and walks. The work of [Robert] Gober resonates with me because
of the way he turns everyday familiar objects into uncanny or disquieting
things that make you doubt the safety of the domestic environment.
I also feel a lot of affinity with the ideas of [Felix] Gonzalez-Torres,
especially his use of Minimalist aesthetics and formal constructs,
which he "contaminates" with social meaning and subversive
content.
FD:
In keeping with your inclination toward ambiguity, your
title, Here Is Elsewhere, allows a number of interpretations.
What are the spaces that you are evoking?
MH: The title is contradictory and implies that elsewhere is
right here—or
the elsewhere within. It also has echoes of the famous declaration by Rimbaud: "Je
est un autre" (I is another). Most of the artists in the exhibition inhabit
an elsewhere or speak from a critical position outside the status quo. I suppose
it is another way to make an oblique reference to the "Other" without
using that very old-fashioned word. I am using this very loosely. Luce Irigaray
talks about women's permanent state of exile, as they essentially exist in
a culture and a language that they have not played a role in shaping. Others,
because of their sexual orientation, color, or cultural background, can, if
you like, be seen as literally or metaphorically in a similar state of exile.
View
the full interview transcript and Here Is Elsewhere exhibition
brochure
(Adobe
Acrobat Reader required)
Pictured above:
Robert Gober. Untitled. 1991.
Wax, fabric, leather, human hair, and wood, 13 1/4 x 16 1/2 x 46
1/8" (33.6 x 41.9 x 117.2 cm). Gift of Werner and Elaine Dannheisser. © 2003
Robert Gober
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